There is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,496 a bottle labelling machine to which this invention is adaptable. The labelling machine receives bottles from an infeed supply which are loaded into a pocketed turret. The pockets on the turret align the bottles under a mandrel thereon to receive the label in the form of a hollow cylindrical sleeve that is formed on the mandrel. It is desired to maintain the pockets of the turret full with bottles when the machine is in operating mode, and to stop the infeed of bottles entirely when the supply thereof is low or the machine is in an idle or non-operating mode. If bottles are allowed to go through the machine at random, the output is unreliable in that some bottles may not receive a label if the machine is temporarily at idle or is non-operating; and, if the machine is in operating mode, the mandrels will produce a succession of labels and some will be discharged into the turret (there being no bottle there) and a waste of material and labels will result.